There seems to be an interesting cottage industry between custom desktop boutiques in trying to build the single fastest machine consumers can buy, and it's not at all dissimilar to the kind of competitive thinking that produces utterly impractical video cards like the AMD Radeon HD 6990 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 that threaten to populate those machines. Somewhere along the line, someone said "screw it" and decided to figure out just how much of a speed demon they could build while still being able to market and sell it to consumers and support it without tarnishing the brand. DigitalStorm has pretty aggressively held on to our "fastest computer we've ever tested" crown for a while, but CyberPowerPC looks to steal it away with their Gamer Xtreme FTW Edition.

And so the arms race continues. I think if you'd told me ten years ago I'd be testing desktops like these for a living I'd've exploded with joy, but it's bittersweet. The CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme FTW is an absolute monster, but it's priced accordingly, and when I look at it I actually feel the same way I do when I discover my old Underground Seas (I've played Magic: the Gathering since '94) are worth at least $80 apiece: it's fun to play with, but essentially too hard to get for everyone to enjoy. How hard to get? Check this out:

So yeah, I believe that's the first time we've broken five grand on a custom desktop machine. But when your motherboard, CPU, and case retail for nearly two large all by themselves, that's not too surprising.

For starters, there's the Intel Core i7-990X, arguably the fastest processor Intel ships today. While it doesn't quite have Sandy Bridge's raw clock-for-clock performance, it makes up for that shortcoming by sporting six Hyper-Threaded cores. And because it's built on Intel's 32nm process, it runs remarkably cool. Stock clock speed is 3.46GHz with 12MB of L3 cache, and it's able to turbo up to as much as 3.73GHz on two cores. CyberPowerPC has overclocked the hell out of it, though, but they opt not to make use of the unlocked multiplier on the CPU: they've instead ratcheted up the BClk from 133MHz to 180MHz and actually reduced the multiplier to 25x. The resulting clock speed is a respectable 4.5GHz, fast enough to put it in competition with Sandy Bridge for single-core speed, and with 50% more cores than the current SNB offerings. Strapped to the i7-990X's three memory channels are six 2GB DIMMs of Kingston HyperX DDR3-1600 for a total of 12GB, running at DDR3-1440 due to the change in BClk.

Supporting this demon of a CPU and its copious memory capacity is Gigabyte's G1.Sniper motherboard. Gigabyte recently released their G1 line of motherboards and they're pretty beastly; the Sniper model brings integrated Bigfoot Networks Killer 2100 Gigabit Ethernet along with Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi. There's the usual Marvell SATA 6Gbps controller as well, along with USB 3.0 support. The G1.Sniper is a very fully-featured piece of hardware, but you'd pay dearly for the privilege: the motherboard's retail price of $429 is onerous considering you can buy a Core i7-2600K and a P67-based motherboard to house it in for the same outlay.

CyberPowerPC didn't skimp on the storage subsystem either: while the 2TB Hitachi storage drive is an amusing divergence from the usual 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black, the pair of 120GB Intel 510 SSDs configured in RAID 0 produces a remarkably fast system drive that sports enough capacity for a healthy selection of games.

Of course, the big ticket items are the pair of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590s configured in Quad-SLI. Each of these cards has two GF110 chips on it, complete with a 384-bit memory bus with access to 1.5GB of GDDR5 per chip. The GPUs themselves sport the full 512 CUDA cores, but they've had their clocks reduced to fit into the GTX 590's 300W thermal envelope. I'll admit I've been a bit snarky with this review unit: whenever I've had people come over, I've opened the side of the case, shown them to the two GTX 590s, and announced "get a good look; almost nobody else will ever see one of these, let alone a pair."

Finally, they house all of this incredibly powerful hardware in Thermaltake's new Level 10 GT enclosure. I hesitate to spend too much time talking about this case because I actually have one in house that I'll be reviewing soon. Oh, and the processor is liquid cooled with a 240mm radiator and four 120mm fans. And there's a kilowatt 80 Plus Gold certified power supply from a reliable vendor. And a fan controller in the front by NZXT. I think that covers everything. Suffice it to say, this is an awful lot of hardware.

The Geforce GTX 590 aren't as impressive as the HD 6990 in the benchmarks I've seen. In fact, the 6990 beats the crap out of them in high resolutions with AA activated, due to their higher vRAM size. Plus, 6990 clocks nearly 300 mhz faster, and while Fermi architecture is superior, 300 mhz is, well....a lot of difference.

The SSD is also a bad choice. Intel has never done any SSD comparable to an OCZ Vertex 3 (or an OCZ PCIe-based one, aka VeloDrive). Besides, who the hell needs 2 terabytes of disk space?

I don't know if it's performance-wise or what, but 6x2 GB's modules seems a waste to me. If you want to upgrade (it's "only" 12 gb's of RAM after all), you've to throw away one or more of them.

At least the price seems "correct", but to claim this is the "fastest system ever"...I'm not impressed at all.Reply

I kind of agree with you on the graphics part, but the difference is neglible. The SSD is not a bad choice, though - the Intel 510 is probably the fastest option out there right now, according to benchmarks, and assuming you have an MB that supports 6Gbps. And yes, the RAM configuration is horrendous - a system like this should have absolutely no drawbacks. At that price point, nothing less should be expected. But - there's bound to be a few idiots with enough disposable income. I'm sure CyberPower (hate that name) is betting on it...Reply

The difference between the 6990 CF and GTX 590 SLI is going to seem at least somewhat academic given the results I had with the GTX 590 SLI config. And personally, I'd make the trade-off: the GTX 590 runs much quieter than the 6990 does.Reply

This system was built to sell to people with some, but not a lot, of PC knowledge. Thus Intel drives and Geforce graphics. The 6x2 GB RAM just helps to confirm it. It's cheaper and still says "12GB" on the side of the case. Although it's not the way anyone would build a system for themselves. Add to it a case with aesthetics that set it apart, and the thinking that went into the design seems pretty obvious.

I'm not saying it's a bad design from a business POV. Just the opposite. Well thought out on the marketing teams side.Reply

If "As configured $5,017" is the full system with the specs we see, then it's pure and absolute crap. If Sandy Bridge-E gets out before October, I'll be able to build a system that kicks it's ass for 500$-1000$ less.Reply

With that power draw, consider the possibility that you will need a dedicated circuit to power it. It's drawing as much power as a microwave (9 amps@110v), and microwaves typically get their own circuit. Most home circuit breakers are 20-amp units (again, US voltage), and you don;'t want to exceed 75% of capacity. Add in the power draw of a pair of 30" monitors and a sound system, and you don't have much room left for anything else on that circuit.

Also consider your line conditioning. At that power draw, the run-of-the-mill 700Va home UPS ain't gonna do it. You'll want to protect your $5000 worth of computers and $2000 worth of multiple 30" monitors (you're not getting this to drive a 24" 1920x1200 display, after all), and to do so at that load you're looking at another kilobuck; your UPS will have to be a low-end data center piece instead of a consumer piece.

Is this worth $5000 to you? The better question is, is it worth $8000? If so, go for it. Just consider all the extra expenses, above and beyond the power bill and the computer itself.Reply

Have to say that I bought a $3K Cyberpower pc last month based on recent reviews here - they sent me a defective machine and have not responded now to three separate emails over the last two weeks requesting support or return information. If that is the service they provide to customers, not quite sure why you are bothering to review their machines.Reply